Day 9 Leg 4 Montegrotto- San Martino Buon Albergo 95 km

A brutal day.

Friday 13th was a bad day to choose a long leg. Another hot day was forecast, so we aimed to start early. That didn’t happen!

We tried enjoying breakfast on the balcony, but as we sat down, a neighbour decided it was time to cut their hedge, directly below us, with a very noisy machine 😡

Breakfast time, waiting for our washing to dry.

We finally packed up and left soon after 10am.

The first 20 kms went well, again travelling along dykes along water channels. A very fertile part of Italy,

Finally, steps to some refreshing water, which was heaven to lie in. I couldn’t persuade Sue to join me: « it looked very slippery », but it wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately this was the only accessible point to the water in many kms.

No idea what this little kritter was, but he liked Sue!

A peacock was sitting on the trail!! He’s just moving off to the left as we approached!!🥴

We decided to go into a village to rest, and get some more water, as supplies were getting low. We arrived at a little Café and 13:55, but as it closed at 14:00 the lady had already locked up and refused to let us in🥵

Fortunately, the next village had an open bar, so we refreshed ourselves there, and loaded up with H2O.

The track became very difficult and we wondered why it hadn’t been mown??

Our answer came when we arrived at a major new motorway construction. We’d seen no previous signs to say the route was closed😡😡. No provision had been made for bikers at all.

It was a long way to bypass this, so we had to unload the bikes. take down a fence and scramble down banks with empty bikes.

All this happened at the hottest time of day, about 34 c🥵

The huge Soave **Castle** , guarded by a giraffe!

Leaving the flat lands. Hills we didn’t need, at the end of the day!

After 95 kms we arrived at this unusual old building, our home for the night. It was now 19:00 and I then had to cycle 2 kms to the sister hotel, to collect the keys, whilst Sue sat on a bench being eaten by mosquitos😡😡😤

Finally we were in, but the air con was not working 😡🥵

The manager arrived after 8pm and gave us another cool room. We had the whole place to ourselves, so the bikes enjoyed a very fancy room to get charged!!

The manager offered us a ride and kindly took us to a huge local brewery with a party going on😁🥂There must have been 1000 outdoor covers, but it was really well organised,

Sue was happy to finally get a proper steak, and no fish! It was delicious😁

It was a good night, with some great oldies being played by the DJ.

Gloria Gaynor’s « I Will Survive » started to play. So appropriate!! We were about to get up and dance, but within minutes of each other suffered really painful leg cramp😲; so enjoyed the music through gritted teeth.

Definitely a Friday 13th; thankfully it was the 14 th after we’d walked the 1 km home.